TheCompleteMemoirsOfGeorgeSherston

whistles to blow and the bombardment to lift. , . . A
young English private in battle equipment pulled
himself painfully toward me and fumbled in his tunic
for a letter; as he reached forward to give it to me his
head lolled sideways and he collapsed; there was a
hole in his jaw and the blood spread across his white
face like ink spilt on blotting paper. .. .

Violently awake, I saw the ward without its phan-
toms. The sleepers were snoring and a nurse in grey
and scarlet was coming silently along to make up the
fire.

II

ALTHOUGH I have stated that after my first few
/~\days in hospital I 6'began to think", I cannot
claim that my thoughts were clear or consistent. I
did, however, become definitely critical and inquiring
about the War. While feeling that my infantry experi-
ence justified this, it did not occur to me that I was
by no means fully informed on the subject. In fact I
generalized intuitively, and was not unlike a young
man who suddenly loses his belief in religion and
stands up to tell the Universal Being that He doesn't
exist, adding that if He does, He treats the world very
unjustly. I shall have more to say later on about my
antagonism to the World War; in the meantime it
queered my criticisms of it by continually reminding
me that the Adjutant had written to tell me that my
name had been "sent in for another decoration*5. I
could find no fault with this hopeful notion, and when
I was allowed out of hospital for the first time my
vanity did not forget how nice its tunic would look
with one of those (still uncommon) little silver
rosettes on the M.C. ribbon, which signified a Bar;
or, better still, a red and blue D.S.O,

555